US Risks Trade Dispute With Canada On Fuel

The rule, contained in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, has the potential to affect billions of dollars of trade in oil. The Department of Defense is the world’s largest single buyer of light refined petroleum. Canada and others have turned to large-scale extraction of oil from underground “tar sands”, whose production itself consumes large amounts of energy. The US is by far Canada’s largest oil export market. The House of Representatives committee on oversight and government reform, chaired by the Democrat Henry Waxman, asked the Pentagon how it would comply. “This provision ensures that federal agencies are not spending taxpayer dollars on new fuel sources that will exacerbate global warming,” Mr Waxman said, in a letter dated January 30. The letter cited estimates that oil from tar sands produces 14 to 40 per cent more greenhouse gas than conventional oil because of the energy consumed in extracting and refining it. The law was drafted in response to US air force plans to build its own “coal-to-liquids” fuel plants, the letter said. ... http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fb5b4e06-dc1c-11dc-bc82-0000779fd2ac,dwp_uuid=b491af84-d311-11db-829f-000b5df10621.html

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